If you think regular school is tough, try it in a rotating space station. And by the way, do you have a hall pass for hall number 0058? Because if you don’t, you could end up scrubbing the showers. When you first arrive at Battle School, all you perceive is its utility, its functionality… that is until you enter the BATTLE ROOM, where there is no up, no down, and ZERO G’s. Movie making can become overly reliant on digital worlds, and nothing can replace a well-built set that you can see and touch and stand in the middle of, fooling you into thinking you are really there. Enjoy this small taste of Ender’s big world. We’ll see a lot more in the weeks to come.

At the newly up-and-running production blog for Ender’s Game, the producers have teased a glimpse of Ender’s world at the Battle School and have promised us more to come in the weeks ahead. If that’s not enough to whet your appetite, producer Roberto Orci also dropped a few comments in response to fans’ fears about how the filmmakers were treating the source material and questions about potential sequels as well as author Orson Scott Card’s involvement in the project. Ender’s Game, based on the award-winning novel by Card, follows a young student training in military school who may be the last hope for humanity in a futuristic war against a hostile alien race. The movie, directed by Gavin Hood, stars Asa Butterfield, Abigail Breslin, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis and Hailee Steinfeld. Fans will definitely want to hit the jump to check out the new photo and to see what Orci had to say.

The folks over at Ender’s Ansible have put together a collection of some of Orci’s comments during a recent talkback session. The responses are a bit out of context but Orci addresses the filmmakers’ cooperation with Card here:

“We have been in meaningful contact with Mr. Card. He is as smart as his book indicates. He has been a great resource for us in every way.”

Orci also addresses the possibility of sequels:

“Sequels are tricky. For one, we never like to count on sequels until they hatch. On the other hand, Card has written so much awesome material in this universe that there is much to figure out. Hope we get the chance.”

And answers the question of faithfulness to the original material:

“When adapting something so beloved You gotta make sure you keep the soul of it intact while doing what is necessary to translate to live action. I know that’s not much of an answer, but i can tell you that we are treating the book preciously.”

Fans of Card’s entire series will be interested in the following Q&A as well:

QUESTION: What are your feelings on the Shadow books and the Speaker books? Do you feel it’s possible to adapt both to the screen, or do you think the latter series would be too difficult, disconnected and abstract for audiences? I’m not asking what Summit’s plans for the franchise are – I just think it would be interesting to know what you think.
ROBERTO ORCI: Certain elements may lend themselves well to adaptation.

__________________Beliefs - Christian. Anti-Republican. Anti-Gun. Complete separation of church and state. Freedom of speech. Freedom to practice any religion in public. Less focus on foreign lands and more focus on our own problems.

It's not something I typically do...but after reading The Hobbit finally, it's got me more excited for the movie. So, I think that's going to be my thing from now on...read the novel first. Looking forward to seeing what this Ender's Game thing is about

__________________Beliefs - Christian. Anti-Republican. Anti-Gun. Complete separation of church and state. Freedom of speech. Freedom to practice any religion in public. Less focus on foreign lands and more focus on our own problems.

“Houston, we have a problem. We don’t know how to land the Shuttle.” Good thing it’s just a simulator safely on the ground at SPACE CAMP in Huntsville, Alabama. Aramis, Moises, Asa & Suraj (pictured above from a monitor in the MISSION CONTROL ROOM ) and the rest of our cast agreed that to do Ender’s Game right, they had to train as though they were really headed into ZERO G. And this wasn’t just an afternoon spent taking a vanity tour. From the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), which simulates extra-vehicular shuttle *missions in Earth’s orbit, to the microgravity training chair that prepared astronauts for moonwalks during the Apollo program, the week at Space Camp was genuine prep for the feeling of reality that this movie deserves. And after all, the army that trains together stays together.

Now in production, the Gavin Hood-directed adaptation of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is slated to hit theaters a little bit later than originally planned. Summit Entertainment announced today that the sci-fi adventure will hit theaters on November 1, 2013 instead of the originally announced date of March 15, 2013.

The ensemble cast includes, among many others, Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin and Viola Davis and tells the story of a young boy raised in a Utopian future who is drafted by the International Fleet to destroy the alien Formic race.

So, i'm reading Ender's Game for the first time and as i'm reading i'm imaging Ford in the role as Graff....and I am pleased with that decision. I think he'll match the role great.

__________________Beliefs - Christian. Anti-Republican. Anti-Gun. Complete separation of church and state. Freedom of speech. Freedom to practice any religion in public. Less focus on foreign lands and more focus on our own problems.

Though Ender’s world is one worth saving, it sometimes comes with a price. The novel was amazingly prescient about a great many things: remote controlled drone wars, the internet, the influence of blogging, hand held computing tablets like the I-Pad, and of course, electronic surveillance implants. Implanted tracking and monitoring chips are no longer a science fiction concept. They exist now. And one day, they may be as advanced as the monitor implanted into Ender, which allows Colonel Graff to “see through his eyes” and know: HE’S THE ONE.

The more futuristic the world, the more invisible its technology. So why shouldn’t Ender’s room look just like any normal kid’s room? And not every future is a dark dystopia. The world that Ender lives in is a world worth saving. That’s why he is willing to leave his family to go into an orbiting Battle School and risk not seeing his sister, Valentine, again until they are both adults. That doesn’t mean this world doesn’t have rules. Ender’s parents had to get permission from the state to have a third child, and if Ender ever had any doubt if he was unwanted, his mother and father’s shock at having their son recruited to be a future leader and transferred to space makes it clear to him that they’ve always loved him. They know that when Ender leaves the safety of his home, they will not be able to protect him any longer. We will keep your room for you just as you left it, Ender…

It's not something I typically do...but after reading The Hobbit finally, it's got me more excited for the movie. So, I think that's going to be my thing from now on...read the novel first. Looking forward to seeing what this Ender's Game thing is about

Read Ender's Game for the first time a year or two ago. I loved it. Fantastic book.

Let’s just hang the kids from bungee chords, roll camera for ten hours and see what we get!” That was plan A. Which is why we are not directing the movie and instead Gavin Hood is. We never thought we would find a bigger fan of the novel than all of us until Gavin walked in the room. Going back to his roots, Gavin decided to take on the challenge of adapting the novel himself, which gives him a huge advantage when it comes to directing it because he knows his script better than any of us. And given the time limitations inherent in working with young actors, this movie would be impossible to complete without Gavin’s preparation and passion. Here you see him crossing off a completed shot of his detailed story boards in the zero g battle room where our young actors, in their zero g training suits, are showing off the high flying skills they’ve learned from our veteran stunt coordinator Garrett Warren.

I reread the book recently and I'm optimistically excited about this project. However, some pretty key scenes are very graphic violence against kids and I am concerned they will either neuter the script or go all shakey cam (ala Hunger Games).

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

I really hope they play up the twist in command school and save it for a BIG reveal. I also hope they keep the Peter/Valentine with their political alter egos but i think that aspect will be difficult to meld on screen. Truthfully it's kind of clunky in the book.

I read this book when I was around 12/13 (a long time ago) and loved it. Hoping the movie does it justice.

I was honestly thinking that filming some hectic scenes from Ender 1st person view and have us hear his thoughts, breathing etc would be a good way to get into his head (literally and figuratively). Of course, transitions from 1st person to normal filming would be tricky?

I can just imagine seeing in 1st person him entering the battleroom for the first time, his first battle, the shower fight etc. I just have this thought that hearing his breathing (from first person) would tell us a lot about his thoughts *shrugs*.

I heard an epilogue from Orson Scott Card on the 20th Edition audio book where he stated the script he adapted is actually a combination of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow (which is an interpretation of the same events but from Bean's pov).

He specifically stated he wanted to stay away from voice overs and that the best way to get around the fact that Ender's Game mostly took place in Ender's head was to add in the buddy element with Bean. I have to agree that voice overs are just lazy storytelling. I would rather actors portray their emotions than hearing about them via voice over.

Whether that script resembles what they are doing for this film is another story.

Harrison Ford reportedly called Ender’s Game, “one of the most emotional science fiction movies he has ever seen.” If you’re a fan of Orson Scott Card’s award-winning novel, this article should let you breathe a little easier about the upcoming Gavin Hood adaptation. While I was a bit leery about Hood’s attachment to my beloved property (see X-Men Origins: Wolverine), the Ender’s Game production blog has been shedding some interesting light on the filmmaker’s approach. Hood and producer Roberto Orci (Star Trek) really seem to get the gist of the novel; that should elicit a sigh of relief followed quickly by a jolt of excitement from fans. Orci recently participated in a Q&A on the blog in which he commented on the tone of the picture, the relationship between Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and Ender (Asa Butterfield), as well as his favorite scenes.

Ender’s Game tells the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a young boy sent away to Battle School to hone his military skills and, hopefully, save the world from an impending alien invasion. Also starring Abigail Breslin, Sir Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Nonso Anozie and Viola Davis, the picture opens November 1st, 2013. We’ve also got some images from the production, so hit the jump to check it out!

It’s hard to believe that the film won’t open until November of 2013, but I’m definitely getting the feeling that the production is on the right track. Hood and Orci each appear to be as big a fan of the source material as I am. Along with Orci’s Q&A below, we’ve got some photos from the production blog, including Hood meticulously going over a Battle Room scene, the young actors of Dragon Army training in hand-to-hand combat and some geek-worthy nameplates from two of the main characters. Check it out! [Some mild SPOILERS follow, so for anyone who hasn't read the book yet(first of all, do that!), you may want to skip this bit.]

Valentine asks:As fans of the book, what is your favorite scene from the book? Do you have a different favorite scene from the movie?

I always loved the scenes within the Mind Game that Ender believes he plays for recreation in the orbiting battle school. Part video game, part psychological test, and if you know the book, part something extraordinary that shouldn’t be given away for those who have not read the book. As for my favorite scene from the movie, we are still filming it so I haven’t seen it yet!

Reuben asks:Question to Mr. Orci — How has this production differed from past (and other current) projects? I’m especially interested to know how you feel about the cast’s interactions and your feelings about the script, now that you see it ‘in action’.

Let’s see. Well first, though I have had some experience with bringing beloved stories to the screen that had intelligent and rabid fan bases like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3, TRANSFORMERS, and STAR TREK, this is the first movie with a pre-existing fan base I have worked on that I didn’t write. This means I that got the chance to evaluate the material merely as a fan. Gavin’s script made me jealous, but it was also a relief that he had satisfied what I would want as a fan from a difficult adaptation. Also, I have never worked with so many talented young actors who became friends so fast under such amazing circumstances. Seeing Asa, who plays Ender, and Hailee, who plays Petra, floating high above the set and getting the giggles was amazing and frightening all at once. They laughed for like twenty minutes, which as a producer on a clock eager to finish your shooting day can give you a heart attack. But soon we all had the giggles, and the joy of it overcame the panic.

Chris Neumann asks:What are the visual influences for the movie? Syd Mead or Star Trek? 2001 or Armageddon? Jon Berkey or Michael Bay?

Visual influences? One thing I can tell you is that Gavin Hood is a gigantic Stanley Kubrick fan, and it shows. And yet, in some of the Zero G battles, things are going on that Kubrick never had a chance to tackle. The technology and advancements in film making available to us allowed us to realize a vision that is totally unique and modern while also being, as Harrison Ford calls it, one of the most emotional science fiction movies he has ever seen.

William Harley asks:How much time is going to be spent on developing Graff’s relationship with Ender? To me, those insights into the command level of the school really brought out the meaning of leadership and how to tackle the challenges that come up.

The relationship between Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and Ender (Asa Butterfield) is key to the movie’s success. Graff would love nothing more than to be Ender’s friend, yet Graff can’t always show it because he has to make it clear to Ender that in the event of another alien invasion, there will be no one available to help him. Their relationship is simultaneously heartbreaking and fun.

Paul2012 asks:Is it a movie for adults, about kids, or a kids movie? I hope for the former.

Like the book, the movie Ender’s Game is about young protagonists dealing with one of the most adult situations known to man: WAR. We don’t soft peddle it, yet we don’t shy away from the fun of being in space and learning amazing new skills that we would all want to learn at any age.

Posted on Monday, May 21st, 2012 by Germain Lussier
When writers visit film sets, they’re generally embargoed from discussing what they’ve seen. It’s just impossible to judge a film while it’s still in production, far from its final look and studios would ideally like impressions to come out closer to a film’s release date. Apparently that embargo doesn’t hold true if you are the person who created the property being put to film.Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender’s Game, recently visited the set of the in-production film, written and directed by Gavin Hood, and took to the Internet to give his thoughts and reveal some new information. He talked about the chemistry between stars Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield as well as answered one of the biggest questions surrounding the movie: How is Hood going to handle the massive battles that take place in a zero gravity room? He also reveals he has a cameo in the 2013 release. Read his quotes and more after the jump.
All of the below quotes come from Card’s blog post at Rhino Times. These are just selections, head there for much more.
First up, Card said the following about his cameo:

Speaking of movies, I was on the set of Ender’s Game last week to record my one line in the movie – a voiceover of a pilot making an announcement to his passengers.

He then talks in detail about his thoughts concerning a scene with Harrison Ford, as General Graff, and Asa Butterfield, as Ender Wiggin himself:

The scene does not come from the book – very few of the scenes in this movie do – so it was amusing when others asked me how it felt to have my book brought to life. My book was already alive in the mind of every reader. This is writer-director Gavin Hood’s movie, so they were his words, and it was his scene.

He expand on that, discusses some of the sets, then talks about how traditional wires such as in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon rely too much on gravity to be used for his zero gravity battle school. That’s when he discusses how the filmmakers plan on pulling this off:

Stunt coordinator Garrett Warren took what he learned from the weightless work he did on Avatar built on it.

There is a mechanism used for training gymnasts – a wheel they wear around their waists that allows them to rotate in space while suspended from wires. Warren used this on Avatar, which allows a great deal of apparent freedom of movement in space – once the computer artists have erased the wheel rig, you can’t tell that there’s any way a wire could have been attached.

But this is only the beginning. The illusion of freefall depends on the actors’ moving correctly. Where gravity naturally draws their limbs downward, in zero-gravity the arms and legs and heads continue in the direction of the last movement, until something stops them.

For the most difficult stunts, Warren brought in dancers from Cirque de Soleil. Being gymnasts by training, they tend to be small – they can bring off the illusion of children’s bodies.

And they have the strength and training to do constant movements and poses that defy gravity, without ever looking as if they’re working hard.

But all the children playing these roles had to do wire work themselves. Fitted with the wheel rigs, they were being moved through space like puppets – and at every moment, they had to make sure their “nonvolitional” movements followed the rules of inertia-driven rather than gravity-driven motion.

It was agonizing. Human muscles aren’t meant to work like that. And Warren was watching everything, playing it back again and again, catching any false movements.

There’s more on the blog, but Card says the following about Warren’s work on the film:

If Garrett Warren doesn’t get a special technical Oscar for his achievement on this film, then there truly ain’t no justice. I’ve seen enough of the result to know that he has brought off the miracle of filming zero-gravity while still on planet Earth.

And almost everything you’ll see in that battle room, real people did. The computers didn’t animate it – they merely made the wires and rigs invisible.

We’ll have much (much) more on Ender’s Game, and specifically the zero gravity battles, in the months leading up to its November 1, 2013 release. What do you think about Card’s revelations?

For a project that has the epic scope of Ender’s Game,it’s only fitting that the film be released in IMAX. Fans can look forward to seeing the adaptation of the beloved Orson Scott Card novel in IMAX format when it debuts in theaters November 1st, 2013. The sci-fi film from director Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) follows Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a boy trained at a military battle school in the hopes that he’ll develop a strategy to defeat the alien menace known as the Formics. This will make two big features for Lionsgate being released in the same month (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire releases November 22nd), two properties the studio hopes will continue to bear box-office fruit. But before Catching Fire can sweep Ender’s Game aside, the sci-fi film will have three weeks to build up a big payday and, hopefully, a bigger following. Hit the jump for more updates on Ender’s Game from the film’s production blog.

Thanks to The Wrap for a heads up on Ender’s Game coming to IMAX screens next fall. The site didn’t have much else to offer, but the fact that it’s being released in IMAX strongly suggests the presence of at least a few scenes in the 70mm format. I’m personally hoping for some scenes in the Battle Room, maybe some epic space combat and perhaps even some shots of Ender’s home world.
I don’t often geek out over film properties. Even this year’s crop of comic book movies only got my blood pumping ever so slightly more than usual. But Ender’s Game is my top favorite book of all time, so it goes without saying that I’m beyond excited for this film’s release. Thankfully, the production team is keeping us up to date with the film’s progress (which wrapped principal photography a couple months ago). The posts give me more assurance that the powers that be are fans of the source material and will hopefully translate that appreciation onto the screen for fans. Here are some of the choice cuts from the latest production blog entries. Some spoilers may follow for the uninitiated:

When asked about the translation of the book’s internal dialogue:

We have a muppet of the Colonel who narrates the whole thing from the future. Oh, no wait, different movie. I joke because that is a great question and I think Gavin would tell you that it was the biggest challenge he faced in composing his script. It was also the most challenging aspect of the casting process. So here we have two things that really make it happen. First, we got such an unbelievable group of actors who can convey so much with their faces and body language… frankly, with their performances, which is something a book is denied using to convey inner emotion or thought.
And secondly, of course, Gavin elegantly translated some of the inner thought into action or character decisions in his script — drama — and that allowed him to find natural places for the characters to speak about what they are going through.

For fans of the character, Bean:

Bean who? Oh, Bean! You should know how much Orson Scott Card advocated for as much Bean as we could muster, and really encouraged ways to make him pivotal. You’ll decide if we succeeded! I think we did. And we’re even more excited for you all to experience Aramis Knight’s fantastic portrayal of Bean.

Are you curious about the futuristic design of the costumes, especially the flash suits?

With science fiction, there’s a danger in creating a look that seems so foreign it becomes alienating. For ENDER’S GAME, we wanted to make a future that looked both functional and logical. We wanted it to be a future where you can picture yourself in their shoes.
But of course, it is the future. For the uniforms, all synthetic materials were used, meaning no loud silk florals. And for the flash suits… well, we actually had to create them out of thin air.
Christine built the flash suits from virtually non-existent fabrics designed by our incredible production team. The idea was to take cues from “extreme sports” to inspire our design, using real world practicality as opposed to the heightened reality of superhero spandex and a cape.

Production designers Ben Procter and Sean Haworth talk about the task of creating sets with a futuristic look made by human hands versus that of an alien design:

As Ben described it, the most fun was creating the two contrasting cultures of Human and Formic technology and architecture.
“We tried to imbue the spaces and vehicles with a gritty, engineered realism that would help sell the seriousness of the training our hero kids are going through. The visual style of the Formics, on the other hand, needed to be both exotic and beautiful to represent a society not deserving of extinction.”
Ask them to describe the Formic world and you’ll get excited tales, imagining a Formic method of manufacture that was distinctly inhuman — a kind of biological 3D printer, with the drones building living spaces and spacecraft layer by layer.